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[Sarah1281]

So I decided to write a second chapter to 'Why Can't I Be Queen?' where, if you don't recall, Mary Sue Cousland was convinced that she could become solo Queen at the Landsmeet and Eamon futilely attempted to introduce her to reality. In the second chapter'Fertility Problems? Mild Inconvenience', Mary Sue has married Alistair and is convinced that the fact that two Grey Wardens cannot have children together is a problem for lesser mortals.


There were times when Eamon wondered if saving Ferelden from Loghain’s tyranny and ensuring that the Theirin lined continued were really worth it after all. Especially when the woman who was supposed to be the mother of Alistair’s children just made an announcement like the one she just had. “I swear, I must be hearing things. Could you repeat that?”
 
Mary Sue nodded magnanimously. “Being eighty and all, it doesn’t surprise me that your hearing has started to go.”
 
Eamon coughed. “Actually, I’m forty-six.”
 
Mary Sue’s eyes widened. “Are you really? Wow, you haven’t aged well. I recommend losing the beard because that adds at least a decade. I suppose being married to such a nagging harpy as Isolde can’t help matters either.”
 
Eamon drew back, affronted. “Excuse me, that’s my wife you’re talking about.”
 
Mary Sue blinked. “I know. I just said that. I should try to be more understanding, though. They say that the mind is the first thing to go and if your hearing is gone, too…”
 
Eamon closed his eyes. He’d almost forgotten how difficult this girl could be. Upon finding out in the middle of the Landsmeet that she could not, in fact, use the specialness of her Cousland bloodline to steal the throne out from under Anora and hi-er, Alistair’s noses then she had reluctantly declared herself Alistair’s bride. As changing their minds would look indecisive and they weren’t sure if just Alistair would be accepted since the Landsmeet had approved of Alistair and Mary Sue ruling together, there had really been no choice but to honor that arrangement. This was already going to take long enough without addressing every insult she delivered seemingly by accident and so Eamon decided to let her slur against Isolde go unchallenged. Fergus was a fine young man but Eamon really had to wonder sometimes where Bryce and Eleanor had gone wrong with their daughter. “Can you just repeat what you said?”
 
“I said ‘Weisshaupt has recently informed me that it is, in fact, highly unlikely for a Warden to be able to have a child and two Wardens have a better chance of living through successfully killing the Archdemon than to have a child together’,” Mary Sue repeated obligingly. “But since I’ve already done the latter then I’m sure that it will all work out.”
 
“I’m pretty sure they were just using that as an example of something impossible and not saying that if you can live through killing the Archdemon – and I’m a little curious as to why you wouldn’t be able to – then you’ll be able to have a miracle baby,” Eamon pointed out.
 
“But if I can do one impossible thing then why not two?” Mary Sue shot back.
 
“Because there is a difference between being able to kill whatever is standing in your way and being able to conceive a child,” Eamon said frankly. “I don’t know what happened with the Archdemon but unless a heightened fertility or outright pregnancy was involved then that’s just not going to help you have a baby.”
 
Mary Sue bit his lip. “So would this hypothetical pregnancy have to be mine or-”
 
“Yes, it would need to be yours,” Eamon said firmly. “Mary Sue, you do realize that the whole reason that I wanted Alistair on the throne in the first place was so that he could carry on the Theirin bloodline? And that he cannot do that if his consort cannot have his children?”
 
“I thought the whole reason you wanted Alistair on the throne was so that you could rule through Alistair and you wanted him to be your puppet,” Mary Sue said, looking confused.
 
Eamon stared at her. “Wherever did you get such a preposterous idea?”
 
“Teyrn Loghain kept shouting about it at the Landsmeet,” Mary Sue replied promptly. “I figured that he knew you longer and must have had some reason to want you dead so he might be right about that.”

“Can we please focus on the issue at hand?” Eamon entreated.
 
“You mean about the baby?” Mary Sue asked. “Don’t worry so much about that. My lack of fertility is really just a minor inconvenience if you think about it.”
 
“I have thought about it,” Eamon argued. “And I’ve certainly put more thought into this than you have, not that that is likely to be saying much. If you do not have an heir then we risk civil war upon Alistair’s death!”
 
“Even if I don’t have a child – which I will – then we can always name Fergus’ children heirs,” Mary Sue assured him. “Either way the good people of Ferelden will be guaranteed to have one of their beloved Couslands on the throne. It would actually be even better that way, I think, as then the Cousland name would actually be the one on the throne.”
 
“I would have thought that the Landsmeet’s refusal to accept you alone would have given you a slightly more realistic point of view on that subject,” Eamon murmured but Mary Sue seemed not to hear him.
 
“Like I was saying, I’ll have a child some way. I know people, you see,” Mary Sue confided. “Why, I know a clan of Dalish who know all sorts of things that might help, and I know the Ferelden Circle of Magi who probably have a whole bunch of knowledge stored somewhere they never bother looking, and I know the dwarves who…well, they can’t do magic but they might still have some ideas because they never let their low fertility rate get them down. Plus, Shale and Wynne went off to the Tevinter to try and get Shale turned from a golem back into a dwarf. Surely if they can do that then they can help me get pregnant.”
 
“But you don’t know that they can do that,” Eamon reminded her. “And even if they can that still seems to be very different then conception. Not to mention that if any of these people really knew how to cause Grey Wardens to be able to procreate together then it wouldn’t be considered such an impossibility. And why would any of these groups waste their time on finding a way for such a thing to occur, anyway? It only affects a minority of people who are only truly relevant when a Blight is on and they don’t have time to have children. Not to mention that I’m not entirely sure why Wardens can’t have children together…?” he hinted.
 
“Sorry,” Mary Sue said shaking her head, not looking particularly sorry at all. “I kind of promised Weisshaupt that I wouldn’t talk about it. Really, though, magic does such wonderful things. Look at what the ashes did for you! How can you see how helpful magic can be and doubt that it will be able to aid me in having a child and that the means to do so will be quick and easy to find? Why, I bet if I went up to the Tower right now and said ‘Irving, I need your help in letting two Grey Wardens have a child’ then he’d go down to the library and find a book detailing just what ritual would need to be performed and I would get pregnant that very night!”
 
“But if it were really as easy as you say, then why does Weisshaupt think that that’s impossible?” Eamon demanded.
 
“Clearly because Weisshaupt is full of quitters such as you,” Mary Sue said sanctimoniously. “If they only applied themselves and asked for help, they would find that they could reproduce with each other as easily – no, easier! – than other people can. Honestly, I know Grey Wardens like secrecy but sooner or later they’ll need to realize that they can’t do everything themselves…”
 
“Right. Well…good luck having a royal heir,” Eamon said before turning and walking from the room. He truly feared for the future if Ferelden were left in Mary Sue’s hands. They might have almost been better off under Loghain (well, he probably wouldn’t have been given how much Loghain seemed to despise him and want him dead). Cailan hadn’t reacted very well to the idea of setting aside his bride at first and they weren’t even in love. Not to mention that by the time his nephew had come around, he had set his sights on the Empress of Orlais of all people which would not have gone nearly so well for Ferelden as Cailan apparently thought for reasons that were obvious to anyone who had half a brain…which Cailan apparently did not, as much as that pained him to admit.
 
Still, Alistair had managed to rally several different armies and unite all of Ferelden under his banner – and he’d done it with Mary Sue no doubt getting in his way every five minutes which was, if possible, even more impressive. He just had to be smarter than Cailan was and so sooner or later he’d do what was best for Ferelden and get someone more fertile on the throne with him to bear his children.
 
Someone who, with any luck, was anywhere approaching sane.
 

[Avilia]

Awesome, just awesome :-)

[FutileSine]

Totally second the above. This is the one Mary Sue I actually *like*. Well maybe not "like" per se....but I actually enjoy reading stories about her.

[Sarah1281]

I'm glad you guys like it.

Personally, I think it's her honesety about the whole thing instead of trying to dress it up as something more rational or, dare I say it, noble. Then again, it was from Eamon's perspective and if she were telling her own story it likely would be. And there would be angst. Lots of completely unnecessary angst.

[Sarah1281]

My seventieth story was 'Leliana for Queen' where Reidin Aeducan doesn't want to be king of Orzammar but Harrowmont won't listen so he finally resorts to agreeing to do it...if he can make the human Leliana his queen.


There were times when Reidin Aeducan really wished that he had just let his little brother take the throne when he’d asked. In fact, he wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t done just that. He may have spent most of his life as the second-in-line for the throne and had been a fairly popular choice for heir but the simple fact of the matter was that he really wasn’t interested. He liked fighting and he liked freedom and he sincerely doubted that becoming the king would let him have much of either.
 
Reidin had always seen Trian as the only thing standing between him and throne and been extremely grateful for his elder brother’s existence which made Trian’s rumored resentment of him rather baffling. He certainly didn’t seem to resent Bhelen – although in hindsight he probably should have – so it couldn’t have just been the fact that they were brothers. Ah well, it hardly mattered now. Reidin had been a bit put-out when Bhelen had killed Trian but since he had quickly moved so that Reidin wouldn’t be expected to succeed their father he quickly got over it. Being sealed into the Deep Roads wasn’t exactly fun but he made the best of it and had actually been fully intending to crown his brother but…
 
Reidin had actually been chatting up Adal Helmi – he absolutely adored that woman – right before returning to the Assembly with Caridin’s crown and she was a staunch Harrowmont supporter so that might have affected his judgment, just a little. Bhelen had completely overreacted, of course, and insisted that Reidin was a murderous exile who had turned his back on Orzammar when he’d murdered Trian and staged a coup. It didn’t work. Really, it had all been rather annoying and Rica expected him to deal with his now father-less nephew so he was almost relieved to avoid all the chaos by citing that looming Blight. Now that the Blight was over and he was back in Orzammar because he had an obligation to little Gorim Jr., he was also – tragically – face to face with his greatest nightmare.
 
“It just makes sense,” King Harrowmont was saying. “You’ve always been popular, Reidin, and you’re the only surviving son of my predecessor. Add to that the fact that you ended a surface Blight, got Ferelden to send troops down here to help us reclaim some lost Thaigs, and are a Paragon and you really are the perfect candidate for my successor.”
 
Reidin had to admit that what Harrowmont was saying made a lot of sense…on paper. He knew he had great qualifications but since he was really so vehemently opposed to the idea he doubted he’d be able to do as good of a job as someone with perhaps a lesser résumé but any sort of inclination to do the job. Unfortunately, just saying ‘no’ hadn’t deterred anyone – not that he had really expected it to as he’d been trying to deny his interest since as long as he could remember – and so Reidin was in the middle of pondering whether it was too late to take up that post in Amaranthine after all when inspiration struck. He had a bit of a reputation as someone very interested in ladies and he’d been seeing two humans during his time on the surface. He had heard that Morrigan had since had some sort of tragic mirror-related accident but Leliana could still prove useful.
 
“As you know, the throne has always been the last thing that I’ve wanted,” Reidin began slowly. “And I’ve gone through some pretty desperate lengths to avoid it.”
 
The look Harrowmont shot him clearly said ‘no kidding.’
 
“Still, I won’t turn down the throne if the Assembly, in all their infinite wisdom, feels that I should be the one to assume it after your passing,” Reidin continued, noticing Harrowmont perk up at that. Time to go in for the kill. “Of course, hopefully this will not be for some time as I’ll need time to track down Leliana and explain the situation to her.”
 
Harrowmont’s brow furrowed. “Leliana? She was one of the humans accompanying you during the Blight, right? Why would she need to be contacted?”
 
“Well, I’d need a Queen, right?” Reidin asked rhetorically. “And I’ve got my heart set on Leliana being my consort.”
 
Harrowmont staggered back, looking as if he were on the verge of a heart attack. Reidin honestly hoped that that wouldn’t happen as, the fact that he’d always been fond of the old man aside, if Harrowmont died now then he’d never get out of becoming king. “But…Leliana is a human.”
 
“I know,” Reidin said, eyeing Harrowmont strangely. “It’s a little difficult to miss.”
 
“You can’t put a human on the throne of Orzammar,” Harrowmont said flatly.
 
“I’m not planning on it,” Reidin said virtuously.
 
“But you just said-” Harrowmont started to say.
 
“I’m planning on putting her near the throne,” Reidin explained, remembering how Anora had described the consort position in regards to herself and Cailan.
 
“You can’t do that either,” Harrowmont informed him.
 
“Why not?” Reidin challenged, crossing his arms defiantly.
 
“To begin with, the entire point of a consort is to have an heir. Any child that this Leliana bore you would be half-human and would never be accepted as your heir,” Harrowmont explained.
 
“I already have an heir, remember?” Reidin reminded him. “Gorim Jr.”
 
“That may be so but if you’re that unpopular then he won’t be accepted as king and any children that you had with Leliana would never be accepted in Orzammar,” Harrowmont pointed out. “And neither would she.”
 
“I’d be their king as well as their Paragon so I could do whatever I want,” Reidin said stubbornly. “And if I want them to accept my hypothetical future children and my lovely Leliana then they will.”
 
Harrowmont sighed wearily, looking very much as if he were already regretting starting this conversation. Good. “A king does not have unlimited power, Reidin. The Assembly would never stand for it.”
 
“Obviously I wouldn’t mention my plans for Leliana until after the Assembly has already named me king and then I can just dissolve the Assembly and do what I want,” Reidin claimed. “It’s been done before, right?”
 
“It was done four hundred years ago by our last Paragon-King Eithnar Bemot,” Harrowmont conceded. “But that was during a Blight. You can’t just decide to abolish the Assembly because you want more power and even if you could pull off a reason they’d accept to get rid of them, that doesn’t render them powerless. They’d still rise up against you in rebellion if you tried to force them to accept a human queen.”
 
“Then my own personal army as well as the Legion of the Dead would rise up and crush them. I’m sure I wouldn’t manage to alienate every single house out there,” Reidin reasoned.
 
“Your army simply isn’t big enough to stand against the armies of all of the other houses and you probably would manage to alienate all of them through this. In addition to the fact that the Legion of the Dead already doesn’t have enough members, they refuse to get caught up in politics anyway so I doubt that they’d leave the Deep Roads,” Harrowmont disagreed. “Besides, it might not even come to open revolt. There’s every chance that they would just end up assassinating Leliana and possibly you.”
 
“I’m way too awesome to be able to assassinate,” Reidin boasted. “I killed the Archdemon and lived to tell the tale, don’t you know?”
 
“Yes, that was very impressive,” Harrowmont pacified him by saying. “But unless that somehow makes you immune to poisons, I don’t think that that will help. And it certainly won’t help Leliana.”
 
“She used to be a bard, you know,” Reidin confided. “In Orlais, they’re so corrupt that they call such espionage and intrigue ‘the Game.’ She can take care of herself.”
 
“She might be able to foil a few assassination attempts but if most of the nobility in Orzammar are out to kill her then she’s going to die,” Harrowmont said frankly. “Do you want that?”
 
“Of course not!” Reidin exclaimed, his eyes wide. “I love her! I want to keep her with me forever and ever!”
 
“Then why isn’t she here now?” Harrowmont inquired.
 
“She said something about leading some sort of pilgrimage, I wasn’t really listening,” Reidin admitted. “But that won’t take forever. I know you’re worried about me, but don’t be. Leliana and I can take care of ourselves and I’m sure that we’ll be very happy as Orzammar’s king and queen.”
 
“I…you’re really not going to back down about having Leliana as your consort?” Harrowmont demanded.
 
“Nope,” Reidin said cheerfully. “Why?”
 
“On second thought, perhaps you were right in seeking to stay off the throne and I really should respect the wishes of our only living Paragon,” Harrowmont said, sounding almost desperate.
 
“Oh, well…if you’re sure,” Reidin said, making sure to sound disappointed.
 
“I am,” Harrowmont said hastily. “I’d best be going. I’ve got an heir to find, after all.”
 
Reidin hid his smirk as he watched the king leave. Well, it might have been almost painful for him to pretend that he thought that that was a possible idea let alone a good one but it would seem that Harrowmont finally got the message.
 
He just really wasn’t all that interested in the throne.

[Raonar]

This made me laugh. Not wanting the throne indeed!

[Avilia]

But if he's king can't he do whatever he wants?



(You're a wicked woman Sarah and I mean that in best possible way )

[Sarah1281]

Raonar wrote... 

This made me laugh. Not wanting the throne indeed!

See, this is why he normally sides with Bhelen. Unfortunately, he ran into Adal and things just sort of happened. If that plan didn't work, I don't even want to know what he would have tried. Promising to give each caste their own distinctive brand? Running to the surface the minute Harrowmont died and not coming back until a new king was chosen? Putting Lord Helmi in charge of his PR? 

Avilia wrote...

But if he's king can't he do whatever he wants?

(You're a wicked woman Sarah and I mean that in best possible way )

Thanks.

I believe that the king can do whatever he wants...but he had better be prepared for that angry mob and widespread revolt.

[Thrubeingcool13]

This reminds me a bit of a topic I saw the other day.

It's interesting to see the lengths that someone will go to to avoid the throne rather than take it.

[Sarah1281]

Thrubeingcool13 wrote...

This reminds me a bit of a topic I saw the other day.

It's interesting to see the lengths that someone will go to to avoid the throne rather than take it.

Really? What an interesting coincidence.

And desperate times call for desperate measures.

[Sarah1281]

My seventy-first story was 'We're Not Your Personal Army, Warden' where the treaty-armies explain that they won't just ignore the Blight because the Warden wants to play chicken with the Landsmeet.


Angélique Amell hadn’t been so very angry since that one time that Jowan had attempted to blame her for the fact that she had totally ended up tattling about his epic escape plan to Irving. Honestly, he was the blood mage, not her. She was even madder than that one time that Greagoir had suggested that maybe she stop talking about how pretty she was for five minutes. She had put up with a lot in the name of stopping the Blight but everyone had their breaking point and she’d just found hers.
 
She had gone straight from Denerim and that disastrous Landsmeet back to Redcliffe and had summoned before her the leaders of the mages, Dalish elves, and dwarves.
 
“Warden, what is the meaning of this?” Lanaya wanted to know. “We haven’t heard anything about what the humans have decided.”
 
“The humans,” Angélique scoffed. “Why should any of us care about them?”
 
“Angélique,” Irving said tiredly. “Being a mage and being human are not mutually exclusive. Honestly, not even the Chantry says that.”
 
“We’re leaving,” Angélique announced. “All of us.”
 
“The Archdemon has been spotted then?” Baizyl inquired, perking up.
 
“Oh no, I have no idea where that is,” Angélique said dismissively. “And it doesn’t matter anyway as long as it doesn’t go to Soldier’s Peak.”
 
“And why is that?” Lanaya asked, frowning.
 
“Because that’s where we’re going to be staying and refusing to help fight the Blight at,” Angélique explained as if she were talking to a particularly dull child. “And if the Blight comes to us there then we won’t really be able to ignore them very well without getting ourselves killed.”
 
“I had never expected to come to the Surface and, quite frankly, I don’t like it,” Baizyl said quietly. “But I did it because my fellow dwarves and I were called upon by ancient treaties to aid the Grey Wardens against the Blight. Why in the world would we agree to just pretend it isn’t happening? I could do that just as well from Orzammar.”
 
“I was at the Landsmeet and had a most grave injustice done to me,” Angélique said, her bright violet eyes brimming with tears.
 
Irving gave a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, Angélique, you’re absolutely gorgeous and whoever told you that maybe you should stop talking about that doesn’t understand you in the slightest.”
 
Angélique managed to flash him a sunny smile through her tears. “Th-that wasn’t it,” she said bravely. “But I do thank you. What happened was that we managed to convince everyone how totally evil Loghain was and then after we killed him, Arl Eamon said that everyone had decided that Alistair was going to be king. Since no one had done anything of the sort, Alistair pointed that out and Anora took that to mean that he was withdrawing his candidacy and so generously offered to be queen but Eamon said that she couldn’t be impartial and asked me to pick someone.”
 
“Being asked to choose a monarch is a great honor,” Baizyl said reverently. “I do not really see how that is a grave injustice and you certainly had no problem choosing our king.”
 
“No, that wasn’t it either,” Angélique said despondently. “They asked me who should become the new ruler and so I said that Alistair should and that I would rule beside him and they said…they said…”
 
“Yes?” Lanaya prompted, expertly masking her irritation.
 
“They said no!” Angélique wailed. “After everything I’ve done for them they were all like ‘awkward silence’ and Alistair was all ‘don’t be silly, Angélique, mages can’t become queen.’ How could he do this to me? I thought he loved me! He’d stopped flinching whenever he looked at me and everything!”
 
“You know that Chantry policy – which has greatly affected Ferelden law – states that mages cannot hold titles and ‘princess-consort’ is a title,” Irving explained. “Not to mention that any children you had would have a higher risk of becoming a mage and would thus be unable to assume the throne.”
 
“I don’t care!” Angélique said wildly. “This isn’t fair. If they are going to be so horrible to me and not even let me completely ignore their long-cherished laws and traditions then why should I save them from the Blight?”
 
“Because you’re a Grey Warden and it’s your duty,” Lanaya responded promptly.
 
“Because if you don’t the darkspawn will ravage the land unchecked and eventually kill you as well,” Baizyl supplied.
 
“Because if you don’t then the Chantry will probably come after you,” Irving told her.
 
“They know what they must do if they want my help,” Angélique said solemnly. “And I told them where to find me if they come around. Let’s go.”
 
“Warden…I hate to have to say this, I really do but…we’re not going anywhere,” Baizyl told her bluntly.
 
Angélique’s jaw dropped. “What? But why not?”
 
“Because we’re not your personal army and this is stupid,” Baizyl told her honestly.
 
“Yes you are,” Angélique countered.
 
“How do you figure that?” Lanaya asked her, crossing her arms in annoyance.
 
“Well, you’re all here because I solved all of your problems and have been acting like I’m in charge,” Angélique reasoned. “That makes you all my own personal army.”
 
“We’re following you because of your treaty, Angélique,” Irving corrected her. “We were not in a position to honor our treaty with the Grey Wardens before you helped, yes, and we are all very grateful but the fact remains that we are here to fight the Blight.”
 
“Agreed,” Baizyl said, nodding. “I’m already up to my ears in dwarven politics and I do not need to be involved in this.”
 
“If we Dalish are seen as holing up somewhere safe and just watching as the Blight devours the land then my people will be persecuted with renewed vigor once this is over,” Lanaya added.
 
“So what are you saying?” Angélique demanded. “That if I go up to Soldier’s Peak you’ll just stay here and wait for Eamon and everyone else and fight the Blight without me?”
 
“Yes, yes that’s exactly what we’re saying,” Irving told her, pleased that she had managed to catch on so quickly.
 
“Well fine,” Angélique cried as she turned on her heel and began to storm away from them. “But don’t come crying to me when the Landsmeet never lets you do anything!”

[Addai]

 (husband)

lol, cool you know I was browsing fanfiction last night and read this.   I wonder how much of it was based on a thread from a few months back....


Now I need to find your story where the Cousland is plotting Anora's assassination, that one looked really interesting.

Modifié par Addai67, 29 septembre 2010 - 02:10 .

[Sarah1281]

Addai67 wrote...

 (husband)

lol, cool you know I was browsing fanfiction last night and read this.   I wonder how much of it was based on a thread from a few months back....


Now I need to find your story where the Cousland is plotting Anora's assassination, that one looked really interesting.

It might have been inspired by that one just a little.

And that would be Expendable.

[Sarah1281]

This week's Zevran prompt was 'First Kiss.'


Alistair was still grinning goofily a full twenty minutes after Anastasia had left him. From what Zevran had been able to tell (though Alistair was strangely reluctant to discuss the matter) he was a virgin and so if that had finally changed then perhaps he could understand such prolonged and unabashed glee. He had certainly seen other men celebrate in similar fashions although he hadn’t been so inclined after his first time.
 
“Ah, my dear friend,” Zevran said jovially as he approached the warden.
 
Alistair, so caught up was he in whatever was going on in his head, jumped. “Oh, uh, Zevran. Did you need something?”
 
“No, not particularly,” Zevran said breezily. “So good of you to ask, however.”
 
“Then why did you come over here?” Alistair asked confused.
 
“What?” Zevran asked innocently. “I can’t simply wish to bond with one of the prettiest Grey Wardens I have the pleasure to be travelling with?”
 
“There are only two Grey Wardens that you’re travelling with,” Alistair pointed out. “Me and Anastasia.”
 
“True, so I suppose that’s really not that much of a compliment,” Zevran mused. “I would change that to ‘one of the prettiest Grey Wardens I know’ but I never made it a habit to associate with your order before this mission.”
 
“I…see,” Alistair said, clearly feeling this to be a good thing given Zevran’s assassin upbringing.
 
“So you appear to be in a good mood,” Zevran noted. “Any particular reason?”
 
“What?” Alistair practically squawked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What? No, no reason.”
 
“It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just saw Anastasia over here?” Zevran pressed.
 
Alistair colored. “You saw that? Well, let’s have it.”
 
“Have what?” Zevran asked, tilting his head slightly.
 
“Oh, you know,” Alistair said, trying to cover his embarrassment. “The jokes, the teasing…if you don’t hurry it up I might turn as red as I can get without you even having to say a word.”
 
“Now that would certainly be a sight,” Zevran considered slowly. “But I see no reason to do any such thing. Really, Alistair, it wounds me that you think so little of me.”
 
“Wait, it’s not-I’m not trying to insult you or anything,” Alistair insisted, running a hand through his hair. “I just would have expected you to give me a hard time. You seem to do that about everything else and to everyone else.”
 
“Why Alistair!” Zevran exclaimed, greatly amused. “I would never stoop so low as to mock someone at the beginning of a great romance!”
 
“You wouldn’t?” Alistair asked, confused.
 
“No, no, no,” Zevran assured him. “So she kissed you?”


The goofy grin was back. “Yeah. I think it went rather well but it’s not like I have anything to judge it by. She’s mentioned that she has, though, and she seemed pleased.”
 
Zevran couldn’t help the smirk that formed on his lips. “Are you, dear Alistair, by any chance telling me that I had the unexpected pleasure of witnessing your first kiss?”
 
Alistair winced. “Hey, I thought you said you weren’t going to give me a hard time!”
 
“Who’s giving anyone a hard time?” Zevran retorted. “I just asked a simple question. I will take your lack of a response as a yes, of course. And let me tell you that I find the matter decidedly adorable.”
 
“Adorable?” Alistair repeated, looking a bit shocked that the assassin had used that word.
 
“But of course,” Zevran assured him. “And since you seem the good little Chantry boy type then I’m going to have to assume that if this is your first time being kissed then you also haven’t had very much experience with certain other fun ‘grown-up’ past-times.”
 
Alistair turned a darker shade of red. “No, I haven’t. Why?” he asked suspiciously.
 
“Well, as you may or may not be aware I am quite well versed in all of them, including several that I do not believe are even legal here in Ferelden,” Zevran informed him. “So if you would, at any point in time, like some advice or even pointers – or you think that Anastasia might – then I would be happy to-”
 
“No!” Alistair practically shouted. “I mean, no, I think I’ve got it under control.”
 
“Are you sure?” Zevran asked, sounding concerned. “Because if you’re not then I can always-”
 
“I’m quite sure,” Alistair said firmly.
 
Zevran shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
 
With that, he left Alistair to futilely recapture the magic of his first kiss while he went off to go find Wynne. It wouldn’t do to spend too much time teasing the same person or his words might get less effective. Well, that or they might attempt to kill him. Really, neither scenario was particularly desirable.
 
Wynne looked up as he approached her. “Yes?” she asked cautiously.
 
Zevran smiled winningly at her. “Say that I believed that murder was wrong…”

[Sarah1281]

This week's prompt was'Leaving Anders in charge of the Vigil.'


Anders opened his eyes slowly. His head felt like the templars had been kicking him there while he slept but, aside from the fact that that would probably have woken him up, he was nearly positive that he hadn’t so much as seen a templar in over a week. What had happened?
 
Anders sat up even more slowly – which did nothing for his mutinying head – and looked around to try and figure out what had happened. The last thing he could remember was…well, he couldn’t actually remember what the last thing he could remember was and that was probably not a good sign, particularly as he’d been left in charge with the actual Warden-Commander, Angélique Amell, was off in Antiva doing…well, he wasn’t quite sure what. Something about some birds having stolen her sword? At least she took Shale with her. That golem really didn’t get have enough joy in her life.
 
“Alright, that does it,” Angélique had declared angrily, her long golden hair swishing from side to side alluringly as she paced. “Ignacio promised me that there would be no more contracts on me and that they would leave me alone but those stupid birds keep coming after me! It was bad enough when the banns managed to talk them into trying to assassinate me again but to steal my sword, too?”
 
“What did it expect?” Shale had asked rhetorically. “Birds are evil.”
 
“And they must be crushed,” Angélique agreed with a sudden, decisive nod. “Hey, Zevran. You were talking about going after them at some point, right? How about right now?”
 
“Well, it was just an idea I was tossing around,” Zevran corrected. “Sooner or later they’ll discover I’m alive but there’s really no hurry. On the other hand, you’re incredibly beautiful and almost disturbing good at killing things so why not?”
 
“Commander, you can’t just leave!” Nathaniel protested.
 
“And why not?” Angélique had demanded, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m the Warden-Commanding Arlessa who just happens to also be the Hero of Ferelden. I can do whatever I sodding want to.”
 
“But Antiva is so far away and this endeavor of your will surely either end in your death or at least be quite time-consuming,” Nathaniel pointed out. “You need to leave somebody in charge of the Vigil.” Clearly, the Howe expected that that would be him and as he was the only vaguely responsible Warden around, that made a great deal of sense. Maker knew he already ended up doing most of Angélique’s job for her on a regular basis.
 
“Good point,” Angélique conceded reluctantly. “Hm…I know! How about Anders take charge?”
 
“I…do not think that that’s the wisest decision, Commander,” Nathaniel said, sounding strained. Anders could see what was upsetting him. If he was going to be the second-in-command who did all the work then it was only fair that he be treated as the second-in-command and be put in charge when Angélique wasn’t there.
 
“Why me?” Anders asked curiously.
 
Angélique shrugged. “Oh, you know. I’m a mage, you’re a mage. We’re both human, gorgeous, and blonde…really, it’ll be like I never left!”
 
After taking a moment to mentally shudder at the thought that he and Angélique had that much in common (although they did share the things she had mentioned, naturally), Anders decided to just accept it. How could one really argue with that kind of logic anyway?
 
Anders started choking when he realized that he was lying beside that infamous killjoy Garavel. Fortunately, a quick glance under the covers revealed that they were both wearing pants. Still, best remove himself from the situation before someone came by and got the wrong idea.
 
He was a bit unsteady on his feet as a great wave of nausea came over him but he managed to force it back down. Anders was beginning to suspect that he’d had a great deal of alcohol last night. In fact, he was even beginning to wonder if he had – dare he say it – partaken in some of Oghren’s special brew. Sober, he knew that that had never and wouldn’t ever end well but after a few drinks his judgment was notoriously impaired. That was what had persuaded him to strip in front of Aeife and accuse her of being in love with him that last time she had come to take him back to the Tower. It had been incredibly amusing, of course, and the memory of the look on her face still made him smile but it had also caused her to refuse to have anything more to do with him. As her replacement had been Rylock, that ranked up there with some of his less brilliant decisions.
 
As he wandered the halls looking for someone awake and sober enough to tell him what had happened, he saw telltale signs of magic everywhere he looked. A scorched wall here, a frozen bookcase there…the only two mages at the Keep presently were himself and Velanna and, as he knew for a fact he couldn’t make trees grow on the staircase overnight, they both had to have been involved with…whatever.
 
He finally found Nathaniel staring blankly at his mother’s portrait (which was, fortunately, unharmed or Anders wouldn’t have even made it through the night in one piece). Typical, he was always staring at that picture despite the fact that he freely admitted that his mother was no looker. Anders’ own mother had been quite beautiful and Anders had strongly resembled her. He wondered vaguely what had ever happened to…ugh. That was the problem with hangovers. They caused him to go down paths that he knew were best left alone.
 
“So you’re awake at last,” Nathaniel said impassively, not bothering to turn around to face him.
 
“Please tell me that you have some idea what went on last night,” Anders practically pleaded (but still sounding surprisingly manly and suave).
 
“Oghren mentioned that the Commander could drink him under the table and you insisted that you could do the same thing,” Nathaniel explained crisply. “As did Velanna, Sigrun, Garavel...basically everyone that happened to be here at the time.”
 
“Except you,” Anders surmised.
 
Nathaniel finally deigned to turn around and face him. “One of us had to be the responsible one. What if something had happened?”
 
“It’s funny. I see your mouth moving but all I hear is ‘I don’t know how to have fun’,” Ander mused.
 
Nathaniel rolled his eyes. “Exactly like she’d never left…”

[Sarah1281]

This week's prompt was 'Mother.'


It was raining when Nathaniel’s mother died. Some would say that that was fitting, that the state of the whether matched the somber mood inside of the house. And the mood was somber because, for all that his father had hated his mother and the servants thought her too demanding, a death was a still a death and one so close to them shouldn’t be taken lightly. Nathaniel hated that the more sentimental could say that the sky was sad that day. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with his grief over his mother and therefore if it was to be raining because of a tragic occurrence than that occurrence would have had to have been elsewhere and unconnected to him. Who wanted the rain from someone else’s tragedy to overshadow his mother’s death?
 
Nathaniel had never told his father that. How could he? Rendon Howe was a man who had never had any patience for sentimental thoughts or idle dreaming. He had always said that if a man wanted something done then he would be better served to go out and do it instead of sitting around wishing. In later years, his father would go on to prove just how much he had meant that. It was a small comfort to know that at least his father had held to his convictions even if it had brought ruin to them all and had brought shame to the Howe name. His father hadn’t really seemed to ever mourn his mother but given their animosity that was, perhaps, not surprising. It was enough that he had never again said a word against her and that that incredibly unappealing portrait of the Lady Howe, which had previous only been taken out when her relatives had come to stay, had been left up in the Keep. Nathaniel liked to stand by it and just look at it sometimes as it reminded him that there had still been good in his father. That wouldn’t ever be nearly enough to make up for all the evil he had done but it was at least something to hold to.
 
Nathaniel had never told his brother about the rain either. Thomas was even more of a dreamer than he was and that had honestly worried Nathaniel. The problem with dreaming too much, of course, was that it meant that reality could never measure up to the hopes and expectations. Thomas’ dreams had seemed mostly harmless when Nathaniel had been sent to the Free Marches. The boy was full of chatter about glory in battle and epic heroes of legend – whose ranks he would one day join himself, naturally – and it had almost seemed like he preferred his dreams to his truth. It had seemed like he was just an overenthusiastic child but Nathaniel still had been hesitant to give his imagination yet more fuel. Thomas grew up eventually in a completely different country than Nathaniel and, though he hadn’t seen it personally, he was assured that his brother had turned to drink and chasing skirts. As hormones hit, romantic fantasies must have become a part of his fanciful repertoire so was he always searching for the one woman who would finally live up to his grand expectations? Did she even exist? And the drink…had that been his way of coping with the stumbling blocks in life that his dreams had not prepared him for? Nathaniel honestly didn’t know and, unless he could get Delilah to talk more about those years when he was gone, he never would. Reality had never been good enough for Thomas and Nathaniel hoped that, somewhere, he was happy now. He might even be with their mother again.
 
Nathaniel absolutely could not bring himself to tell his sister about the rain. Unlike Thomas, Delilah was a pragmatist. She would probably sit him right down and try to find out why he was saying things like that instead of accepting it or dismissing it like their father or brother would have done. Nathaniel might have even told her which was why he couldn’t have risked mentioning it at all. Delilah never tried to pretend that things were better than they were. She faced reality, no matter how awful it got, unflinchingly and she suffered for that. Nathaniel wasn’t about to add to her problems and he was the big brother anyway. It was really his job to comfort her, even if he didn’t know how, not the other way around. When he had found out that she wasn’t dead, he hadn’t been as surprised as he had thought he ought to be. Then again, she would be the one to make it through. She had never wanted too much too quickly like their father or rejected everyone else’s reality and substituted her own like her brother. She had never really been happy living a pampered life as the Arl’s daughter because she said it made her feel removed from the people. Her new life in Amaranthine might not be glamorous but it felt more solid to her, more real. She was probably happier there than she ever could have been elsewhere.
 
Nathaniel wondered what his mother would have made of his feelings about the rain. It was a little depressing that he could perfectly picture how the other members of his family would have reacted and yet he had no idea how she would have. It was to be expected, he supposed. The Lady Howe had been the typical sort of aristocratic mother who had had little interest in noisy and sticky children that he had encountered in most noble households (the exception being Eleanor Cousland who, along with her husband, had adored her children since birth and Isolde Guerrin who seemed to be almost unhealthily attached to her son) and she had died before even Nathaniel could have become someone that could hold her interest. He had been raised instead by Adria who was just as good as a mother and who would have simply given him a hug had he confided in her. She was dead, too, now after having first become a ghoul. Sometimes when he looked at his mother’s portrait he tried to understand who she was because he understood her less than he understood anyone and he watched Delilah with her children it struck him just how sad that was. She was his mother but she might as well have been a stranger.
 
It was raining again. Some would call that fitting.
 

[Sarah1281]

This week's prompt was 'Rogue Specializations: Bard, Ranger, Duelist.'
 

“I’m just saying that it seems kind of limiting,” Leliana said again.
 
Zevran tilted his head. “Really? How so. Assassinating seems to be the most efficient way of eliminating your enemies.”
 
“Yes, I’ll admit that assassination is certainly very useful and that in my work as a bard I had to employ some assassination skills here and there but versatility is never a bad thing…” Leliana trailed off as something new occurred to her. “Well, as long as you make sure that you fully understand everything you’re doing and don’t just learn bits and pieces of different methods.”
 
“I suppose I can see your point,” Zevran said agreeably. “Even in Antiva, assassinating people is not always so simple as wandering up to their current location and slipping poison into their food when no one is looking or slitting their throats as they sleep. Other skills come in handy – such as the ability to impersonate a cook – and outside of Antiva I have heard that that is even more true. Certainly my first time out of the country is proving to require more of me than basic assassinations.”
 
“So can you do some of the other roguish crafts? Have you tried your hand at any of the bardic arts, perhaps? Or learned anything about being a ranger or a duelist?” Leliana inquired.
 
“My friend Isabela – you remember her, yes? – tried to teach me dueling once,” Zevran replied.
 
Leliana wrinkled her nose. “I do, in fact, remember her. The pirate captain.”
 
Zevran nodded. “Yes, though she wasn’t then. This was back during my own pirate days when she was the wife of my target. She said that fighting with quickness and wit was far more valuable than fighting with brute force and, being an elf and an assassin, I was quick to agree. She had nothing better to do and so she offered to teach me.”
 
“How did that go?” Leliana wanted to know.
 
Zevran smirked. “That was certainly a very productive couple of days and some of my fonder memories.”
 
“So you’re a duelist, then?” Leliana asked, surprised.
 
“Now, I didn’t say that,” Zevran told her. “We got a lot done but not so much on the dueling front. It seemed that every time we started a lesson she ended up the naughty school mistress…”
 
“I see. I suppose it is rather difficult to learn something from someone you’re sleeping with,” Leliana conceded.
 
Zevran’s eyebrows shot up. “Speaking from personal experience, are we?”
 
“What a thing to ask,” Leliana replied, dodging the question. “Did you try any other specializations?”
 
“A fellow assassin named Taliesin developed an interest in animals a few years back and decided to become a ranger,” Zevran revealed. “He could summon an animal to fight by his side seemingly out of thin air. We did mock him quite a bit for it since it so strongly resembled the princesses of children’s stories but he insisted that the usefulness more than made up for the taunting he had to deal with.”
 
“And he decided to teach you?” Leliana guessed.
 
Zevran nodded. “He decided to teach me,” he confirmed. “He told me all about how the wolf, the spider, and the bear were the three most basic animals to summon and I think I even managed to call a wolf to me once. Unfortunately for our lessons, Taliesin had a slight fetish for naughty schoolboys. Again, his time attempting to teach me to be a ranger was very productive but I cannot say that I learned much.”
 
“Well of course you’re never going to learn anything if you keep sleeping with your instructor before they teach it to you!” Leliana exclaimed. “That’s it, I’m going to teach you some of the bardic arts.”
 
Zevran wiggled his eyebrows at her and grinned rakishly. “Why, my dear Leliana! If I had known that you were interested-”
 
“I’m not going to have sex with you,” Leliana told him promptly. “I am going to teach you to sing.”
 
Zevran opened his mouth.
 
“And not like that!” Leliana hastened to add. “A non-Orlesian bard already has a distinct advantage as no one would suspect a bard from elsewhere as being anything more than a mere minstrel. Most of the bardic arts, seducing a target, dirty fighting, stealth, larceny, and killing you already know, of course. That really just leaves story-telling, singing, and playing an instrument. I don’t actually have any instruments with me at present so that’s right out but we can work on the other parts.”
 
“You know,” Zevran told her slyly. “I’m really not sure that I do have seducing a target down. Sure, I’ve slept with my fair share of them but they were usually well aware that I was an assassin come to kill them and so I’m sure it wasn’t as…elegantly done as a bard might do it.”
 
“It’s not happening,” Leliana said flatly. “And I don’t care how hot you find a naughty schoolmistress/naughty schoolboy dynamic.”
 
“You’re so cruel…” Zevran lamented. “But as you like.”
 
“I use several different types of songs in the course of my fighting,” Leliana continued. “As far as non-combat purposes go, that really falls more within the context of being able to tell a good story and choosing to sing it instead of simply talking about it. Singing a song of valor about ancient heroes tends to inspire allies and cause them to rejuvenate faster while an all-out performance can often confuse enemies.”
 
“I can see why if you’re going to be breaking into song in the middle of a battle,” Zevran agreed.
 
“A song of courage about what my allies have done personally in the past gives them more confidence in themselves and as such improves their performance in battle and captivating song stops enemies in their tracks for a few seconds as they listen spellbound,” Leliana finished. “Before you can learn any of these, however, I have to be able to hear how you sing. Try a few bars with me. La la la…”
 
Zevran dutifully did as she asked, only to quickly stop at the look on Leliana’s face. “What? Did I do something wrong?”
 
Leliana slowly shook her head. “No, nothing like that. You just…wow, you are not very skilled at singing, are you?”
 
Zevran shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, having never sung in front of anyone before. Would that make my budding bardic career impossible?”
 
“It would certainly put a damper on it, yes,” Leliana agreed. “You could still tell stories, of course, but unless you can sing them properly then it will be completely useless in battle.”
 
“So what am I to do about my lack of ability at being a bard and my lack of knowledge about being a ranger or a duelist?” Zevran asked her. “Should I just forget the whole thing and stick to being an assassin?”
 
“Well, I’m afraid I don’t know much about dueling or being a ranger as my secondary craft was assassination,” Leliana confided. “But Ahria did learn how to duel from Isabela, remember? And she’s been summoning animals since before I even met her. Maybe she can help.”
 
Zevran’s eyes lit up. “Oh, what a wonderful idea! Our assassination lessons were so very productive, after all…”
 
As he sauntered off to go find Ahria, Leliana resigned herself to the fact that he’d probably never learn another roguish craft.

[Sarah1281]

This week's prompt was'Hair.'


It was a testament to Anders’ professionalism that he waited until the last darkspawn had fallen before reacting.
 
“What did you do?!?!” he demanded, examining his reflection is horror.
 
Velanna shot him a look. “I just killed a half a dozen darkspawn.”
 
“You lit my hair on fire!” Anders corrected.
 
“It is so like a shem to ask me something that they already know the answer to,” Velanna said crossly.
 
“You lit my hair on fire!” Anders reminded her.
 
“You put it out within a couple of seconds,” Velanna pointed out.
 
“You lit my hair on fire!” Anders said again, so horrified that he couldn’t find anything else to say.
 
“It was an accident,” Velanna claimed.
 
“How do you ‘accidentally’ light someone’s hair on fire?” Anders demanded.
 
“Easy,” Velanna replied wryly. “I was aiming for one of the darkspawn and you moved your head at the last second.”
 
“So you’re admitting that you can’t control your magic?” Anders asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow.
 
“No!” Velanna insisted. “I just can’t control stupid shems who don’t have the sense to stay out of the way.”
 
“Maybe you shouldn’t be aiming for darkspawn that are right behind me,” Anders helpfully suggested.
 
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Velanna said with mock-enthusiasm. “You’d have a darkspawn sword in your gut because you didn’t notice that it was sneaking up on you but at least you’d die with perfect hair.”
 
Anders opened his mouth to reply and then quickly shut it again as he realized that she was right. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, however. “But my ponytail is really badly burned.”
 
Velanna wrinkled her nose. “So I can smell.”
 
“What am I supposed to do?” Anders cried out, fingering his burnt hair miserably.
 
“Well, you could always leave it like that,” Velanna answered matter-of-factly. “But I would really recommend cutting it. It looks horrible.”
 
“I’ve had long hair since the minute I realized that Irving and Greagoir disapproved,” Anders reminisced fondly. “And the ladies just loved to run their fingers through it. They said that it was nice to find a man so secure in his masculinity. Not to mention that the ponytail really added to my pirate-esque appearance.”
 
“Your hair will grow back, you know,” Velanna said, cruelly unsympathetic to his plight.
 
“It will take months for my hair to grow back to what it was before you savagely attacked it,” Anders informed her. “If not years. And who knows if it will ever look half as good as it did before?”
 
“You are seriously over-reacting,” Velanna declared. “I refuse to feel guilty about saving your life. Although if you’d like me to regret it then, by all means, keep complaining.”
 
“You’re so understanding,” Anders deadpanned.
 
“I do try,” she shot back. “Maybe you should try to actually cut your hair and see how it looks before flying off the handle?”
 
“I don’t have any scissors with me,” Anders told her. “And I’m definitely not using a dagger. I guess I’ll just have to wait until…why do you have scissors?”
 
Velanna, who had just pulled a pair out, shrugged. “It never hurts to be prepared. A life spent with the Dalish taught me that much.”
 
“Well, I do have a mirror or two so I could see the finished product but I can’t possibly hold two mirrors up and cut my hair at the same time,” Anders reasoned. “So I’ll have to wait until I get back to the Keep and can use one of the wall mirrors.”
 
“We’re not getting back to the Keep for over a week,” Velanna said flatly. “And I am not going to listen to you complaining about your poor hair for the entirety of the trip.”
 
“What do you suggest?” Anders challenged. “Because the only mirrors I’ve encountered in forests are evil ones and I’m not going to stop complaining until my hair is fixed – and possibly not even then – no matter what you do to me.”
 
“I had expected as much,” Velanna told him. “Which is why I’m going to be cutting your hair.”
 
Anders drew back, shocked. “Wait, what? Do you even know how?”
 
Velanna rolled her eyes. “Of course I know how! What part of ‘Dalish’ screams ‘helpless’ to you?”
 
“No part of it,” Anders was quick to assure her. “I just…don’t really trust you anywhere near my hair. I mean, you did just light it on fire, after all.”
 
“It was collateral damage,” Velanna said firmly. “And as there aren’t any darkspawn around such a thing wouldn’t occur when I was cutting it. Besides, your hair looks really bad now. I’m not sure it’s even humanly possible – let alone elvenly – for anyone to make it worse.”
 
“I suppose that’s true,” Anders agreed. “But I don’t know…”
 
“Oh, just sit down,” Velanna snapped, losing her patience. She pushed Anders towards a rock and, obediently, he sat down.
 
He knew that he’d be uncomfortable if he couldn’t see what she was doing but that he’d probably give himself a panic attack if he could and so he, very reluctantly, put the mirror away. Just because he couldn’t imagine how Velanna could possibly make it worse didn’t mean that it wasn’t possible. He had a great deal of faith in her creativity, after all, and was pretty sure that if she did somehow manage to make it worse than it would be a least partially deliberate. She was getting better with her habitual spitefulness but she hadn’t ever approved of how much care he put into his appearance or his habit of complaining about the little things so as to avoid having to mention the big ones.
 
For fifteen minutes he sat in complete silence save the snipping of Velanna’s scissors. “It’s done,” she finally declared. “Have a look for yourself and see if I really did ruin your hair.”
 
She sounded far too satisfied with herself for Anders’ liking and so he was almost afraid to look. Would it really be so bad if he just never glanced at his reflection again? Though even if he did that there was still the chance that other people would comment on his hair, particularly if it were really dreadful. Taking a deep breath, Anders reached a shaky hand into his pocket and pulled out the mirror from earlier along with a second one.
 
He inspected the front of his hair. It was shorter, obviously, but it actually looked rather – dare he say it – dashing. Encouraged, he held up the second mirror and glanced at the back of his hair. She did nice work.
 
“Are you done admiring yourself?” Velanna asked, annoyed, after a few minutes.
 
Anders smirked. “For now, maybe. I make no promises about later. And you know, this might have actually been one of my more brilliant ideas…”

[Sarah1281]

This week's prompt was 'Little Boy Dreams.'


Nathaniel Howe slowly crept around the corner and towards his father’s study. Adria had put him to bed quite some time ago but he was far too excited to sleep. His father had been away in Denerim for half the winter and they had received a messenger saying that he would be back to Vigil’s Keep that very night! How could he possibly sleep when he was going to be able to see his father for the first time in weeks? If he was caught, he’d get in trouble and be sent straight back to bed but he was just going to have to risk it.
 
Thomas and Delilah were already asleep, of course. Delilah had been  all boring and insisted ‘the sooner we go to sleep, the sooner we’ll wake up and see that father’s returned’ so she hadn’t been interested in staying up to wait. Thomas had been but he was still just a baby, really, and so hadn’t been able to stay awake for very long. Nathaniel thought Thomas had actually fallen asleep before Delilah and she wasn’t even trying to stay up. Their mother wasn’t treating this as if it was anything special but, well, mother’s tended to be weird like that.
 
The light was on in the study. No one went into his father’s study when he wasn’t there which meant that he was home after all! As Nathaniel inched open the door, it occurred to him that his father might not be pleased to see him up so late either. He was supposed to listen to Adria, after all, and he hadn’t done that tonight. Either way, he hadn’t come all this way to turn back now.
 
Sure enough, Rendon Howe was sitting at his desk and writing a letter. He looked up when Nathaniel came in. “Ah, Nathaniel. What are you doing up so late?”
 
Part of Nathaniel wanted nothing more than to run to his father and give him the biggest hug he could but he didn’t because he was a Howe and that wasn’t how Howes behaved. Instead, he just moved closer to the desk and replied, “I wanted to see you.”
 
A small smile stole over the Arl’s face. “Is that so? While I appreciate the sentiment, you really should get to bed. It’s far too late for someone your age to be up.”
 
“I’m not tired, honest!” Nathaniel claimed earnestly. His words were quickly belied by the yawn he couldn’t quite manage to suppress, however.
 
Rendon chuckled. “I see. Do you think a story would help you get to sleep?”
 
Nathaniel’s eyes lit up. He loved his father’s stories. “Oh, definitely,” he agreed, trying not to sound too eager.
 
“Okay, let’s see…what haven’t I told you before…I’ve told you a little about the rebellion, I know, and about King Calenhad,” Rendon mused. “Have I told you about the Blackmarsh?”
 
Nathaniel shook his head. “What’s that?”
 
“I haven’t? It’s on our very land, you know. The Blackmarsh used to be a fairly prosperous village but not too long before Queen Moira took over the rebellion, everyone in it mysteriously died,” Rendon told him.
 
Nathaniel’s eyes went wide. “What happened?”
 
“No one really knows,” Rendon said conspiratorially. “Everyone who happened to be in the village at the time all died and those who went to investigate afterwards claimed that they saw monsters in the village. It doesn’t really matter if that was true or not, because the rumors combined with the mysterious massacre were enough to ensure that nobody wanted to go near the land. Most people think it’s cursed.”
 
“Do you think it’s cursed?” Nathaniel asked, his eyes growing wider.
 
“I don’t believe in curses,” Rendon replied calmly.
 
“So what do you think happened?” Nathaniel pressed.
 
Rendon frowned. “I haven’t put much thought into it but this was shortly after an Orlesian baroness took over ruling the Blackmarsh. I don’t like to think of myself as overly paranoid but it wouldn’t be the first time during the occupation that the Orlesians committed such an atrocity. Why do you think so many joined the rebellion, even knowing what it might cost them?”
 
“Your grandfather didn’t join the rebellion,” Nathaniel pointed out. He didn’t mention his own grandfather, of course. Nobody mentioned Padric Howe around Rendon.
 
A shadow passed over Rendon’s face. “No…no, he did not. My grandfather was a very old man, Nathaniel. He had been alive back before the occupation even began. He remembered what it was like when the Orlesians first took over and I think that he just couldn’t let go of the past. He was a bit old to be a rebel, anyway.”
 
Nathaniel didn’t like to see his father upset and so he quickly changed the subject. “So many bad things happened and no one seems to know why or how to fix them. When I grow up, I’m going to fix it. One day, I’ll go to the Blackmarsh and I’ll set things right.”
 
Rendon chuckled. “Will you? And how do you think you’re going to do that?”
 
Nathaniel thought about it for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to go there to see what’s wrong with it first. And I should probably bring a sword in case there really are monsters there.”
 
“That’s always a good idea,” Rendon agreed. “Although be careful: you never know just what form the monster might take. It could look like one of the servants, one of your friends, your family members…”
 
“Even you?” Nathaniel asked, feeling a little disturbed by the notion that monsters could be everywhere.
 
Rendon looked surprised at the question. “Yes, even me, I suppose. That makes it all the more important that you go set things right one day, doesn’t it?”
 
As Nathaniel made his way back to bed, he couldn’t help but grin. There was still so much wrong with the world but one day…one day his little boy dreams would become grown-up heroics. He was sure of it. And wouldn’t his father be pleased then?

[Sarah1281]

My seventy-second story was 'Prince CousCous' which is the male equivalent to Princess CousCous.


People often wondered what Bryce and Eleanor Cousland had been thinking when they named their second son Prince. Seeing as how the couple were the highest-ranking nobility in Ferelden, nobody save the King, their fellow Teyrn Loghain, or the members of their own family wouldn’t feel like they were being impudent to do so. Loghain honestly didn’t care what they named their spawn as long as they weren’t plotting with Orlais, Maric hadn’t even been able to come up with a name for either of his children and had gotten Rowan and Duncan respectively to name them, and Cailan had grown up with Prince. Fergus had asked once but he had only gotten a confusing warning about the hazards of excessive drinking and making silly bets.
 
Prince himself adored his name. He thought it was a sign that one day, he could become King Prince. Unfortunately, there was that little matter of that hack Cailan but the minute that Loghain found out about Cailan’s secret plans to divorce Anora and marry Empress Celene of Orlais then something told him that Ferelden would be short a king and the queen would be single again. He could, of course, actually play some part in telling Loghain or the Landsmeet about Cailan’s plotting but given that he intended to take the throne in the aftermath of all of that that would make him seem too opportunistic. Surely someone as paranoid as Loghain would figure it out sooner or later. Cailan worried that that would happen, too, which was why he had taken to avoiding his father-in-law. Seeing as how Loghain was Cailan’s top general and they were both of at Ostagar dealing with darkspawn, that was probably harder than it sounded.
 
Prince wandered into the main hall of Castle Cousland to see his father reminiscing with the evil Arl Howe. He just knew that Howe was out to kill them all but whenever he tried to tell his parents such, they never seemed to think ‘have you heard his voice’ was a good enough reason to suspect him. Well, Prince couldn’t say that he hadn’t tried.
 
“I'm sorry pup; I didn't see you there. Howe, you remember my son?” Bryce said politely. Prince wondered vaguely, since his father seemed to think that Howe was his friend, why he referred to him by his last name. Clearly, friend or not, Bryce couldn’t stand the man either.
 
“I see he's grown into a fine young man. Pleased to see you again, lad,” Howe greeted perfunctorily.
 
“I’m on to you,” Prince growled.
 
Howe laughed, a little uncomfortably. “My daughter Delilah asked after you. Perhaps I should bring her next time.”
 
“Don’t bother,” Prince said rudely. “Your daughter isn’t hot enough for me and I’m marrying Anora anyway.”
 
“Pup,” Bryce said in his why-didn’t-we-stop-after-Fergus tone, “Queen Anora is already married.”
 
“For now, maybe,” Prince muttered crossly. He didn’t know much about Anora but she was really hot and he wanted to be king so he was sure that they’d make a wonderful couple. Besides, Anora hadn’t had a child in five years of marriage which meant that she must be getting pretty nervous and so would want to have sex nearly non-stop to make sure that they’d have an heir.
 
Bryce rubbed his forehead wearily. “Prince, please try not to say anything treasonous in front of the guests.”
 
“I heard nothing,” Howe promised, while probably secretly plotting to tell everyone what he’d said after having the castle massacred.
 
“At any rate, I summoned you for a reason,” Bryce said, quickly changing the subject. “Your brother and I are going off to war tomorrow and so I’m leaving you in charge of the castle.”
 
Prince sighed. “Do I have to? Why can’t Mother do it?”
 
“Your mother is going off to stay at Lady Landra’s Denerim estate,” Bryce explained patiently.
 
“Oh. Why can’t Oriana do it, then? She may be Antivan but she seems to be vaguely competent,” Prince suggested.
 
“The whole reason that your mother is leaving is so she wouldn’t make anyone question your authority,” Bryce replied. “And so if Oriana were to be in charge then it would defeat the purpose of your mother leaving in the first place.”
 
“Why do I have to baby-sit the teynir?” Prince whined manly-ly. “I want to go off to battle and kill scores of darkspawn while everyone around me just kills a handful and singlehandedly drive back the horde while everyone just stares in awe at my mad skills.”
 
“Because life doesn’t work like that,” Bryce said, beginning to get impatient. “And you’d just get yourself killed if you tried. This is real life, pup, not one of Cailan’s legends. You’re not going and that’s final. Now, send Duncan in.”
 
“It is an honor to be a guest within your hall, Teyrn Cousland,” a heavily-armed man with a suspiciously Rivaini appearance said as he walked into the room.
 
Howe drew back, looking horrified. “You never told me that there would be a Grey Warden here!”
 
“Duncan arrived unexpectedly. Is that a problem?” Bryce asked with a frown, trying to remember if Howe had gotten over that traumatizing incident where he’d gone home with an elven Grey Warden that he’d thought was female or not.
 
“What’s wrong, Howe?” Prince challenged. “Does this put a wrench in your plans to murder us all?”
 
“Really, child, you do say the strangest things,” Howe said delicately, pointedly ignoring the question.
 
“Duncan’s here to test Ser Gilmore to see if he has what it takes to become a Warden,” Bryce explained.
 
“Your son might also make a good recruit-” Duncan started to say.
 
“What would that do to my chances of becoming king should anything tragic befall Cailan?” Prince interrupted.
 
“Kings have no place being Grey Wardens and Grey Wardens have no place being Kings,” Duncan replied.
 
Prince made a face. “Not interested then.”
 
“Thank the Maker for small mercies,” Bryce murmured. “Now, go find your brother and tell him to come and see me.”
 
“Maker, first you won’t let me go into battle and now you’re giving me servant work? You must really hate me,” Prince sulked.
 
Bryce rolled his eyes. “Not now. Just go find your brother. He should be in his rooms.”
 
A single manly tear rolled down Prince’s cheek at this cruel dismissal but he nobly did as his father requested.
 
“There you are! Your mother told me the Teyrn had summoned you, so I didn't want to interrupt,” a red-headed young man exclaimed as he ran up to Prince.
 
“Hello, Gilmore. Why are you bothering me?” Prince asked with a put-upon sigh.
 
“Your mother wanted me to tell you that your dog is causing all sorts of problems in the kitchen and Nan is threatening to quit if you don’t personally go and make him leave,” Gilmore explained.
 
“So my mother can send servants to deliver her messages but my father insists on sending me,” Prince lamented. “Well, I can see which parent likes me better. Although if she wants me to go deal with staffing problems then maybe that’s not quite true…”
 
“Um, I’m not a servant,” Gilmore reminded him. “And mabari only listen to the one they’ve imprinted on, you know that.”
 
“I don’t even like the thing!” Prince complained. “My life is dreadful. If only I could be a commoner…I would be free of such dreadful restrictions and wouldn’t have to deliver other people’s stupid messages.”
 
“Is that…really what you think the life of a commoner is like?” Gilmore asked uncertainly.
 
“Pretty much,” Prince confirmed. “Although being so un-special is really not my thing so I think I’ll stick with my current plans of becoming king one day.”
 
“Yes, it must be so trying to be you,” Gilmore deadpanned. As per usual, Prince failed to pick up on the sarcasm. “So…I heard a Grey Warden was coming. Do you know anything about that?”
 
“Oh, yeah. Duncan said something about wanting to recruit me but since I can’t be bothered he supposed that he might as well test you so as to not have wasted a trip,” Prince said casually.
 
Gilmore deflated a little. “Oh…well, that’s…that’s something, I guess.”
 
“Now, let’s go find that stupid dog,” Prince said reluctantly as he strolled along the hall. He stopped as he came upon his mother talking with one of her friends. This really pathetic-looking man that Prince was quite certain he had never seen before was standing nearby as well as the really attractive elven woman. Well, at least he thought it was a woman. It was really hard to tell with elves sometimes.
 
“Darling, have you fetched your dog yet?” Eleanor asked, sounding a little drunk.
 
“No,” Prince replied. “Why do I have to do it anyway?”
 
“Because it’s your dog,” Eleanor pointed out.
 
“But I hate it,” Prince told her.
 
Eleanor fixed him a stern look. “Your father acquired that mabari for you at great cost, and the dog adores you. The least you could do is keep him out of trouble.”
 
Prince rolled his eyes. “Fine…”
 
“Do you remember Lady Landra? She’s Bann Loren’s wife,” Eleanor introduced.
 
“I think we last met at your mother's spring salon,” the woman said helpfully.
 
Prince frowned as he tried to strain his memory back. “Weren’t you the one who threw up all over Bann Vaughan, Arl Howe, and King Cailan?”
 
“Don’t be rude, dear,” Eleanor hissed at him, looking mortified.
 
Prince’s eyebrows shot up. “Rude? I’m impressed. I hate those three almost as much as Bann Loren hates her.”
 
Lady Landra coughed, embarrassed. “You remember my son, Dairren? I believe you two sparred in the last tourney.”
 
“And you beat me handily, as I recall. It's good to see you again, my lord,” Dairren said politely.
 
“I have never seen this man before in my life,” Prince insisted.
 
Dairren’s face fell. “But…we spent so much time together!”
 
Prince just shrugged. “Who’s that?” he asked, pointing towards the elf.
 
“That would be my lady-in-waiting, Iona,” Lady Landra answered. “Well, do say something, girl.”
 
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Iona said diplomatically.
 
“I’m sure it is,” Prince agreed. “Do you want to have sex later?”
 
“Prince!” Eleanor cried, shocked at his audaciousness.
 
“No thank you,” Iona managed to say civilly.
 
“Why not?” Prince asked, genuinely puzzled. “Wait…don’t tell me that you’re one of those lesbians? Trust me, that’s really not as much of a problem as you’d think.”
 
“I’m not a lesbian and I have a daughter,” Iona told him, still reasonably calm.
 
“Then why don’t you want to have sex with me?” Prince demanded.
 
“Well, there’s the fact that we just met, you come on very strongly, I’m not that easy, if we did have sex then I would run the risk of becoming pregnant with a human child, I can’t afford a second child, I would be shunned by my fellow elves for having a human child and my child would have it even worse as an ‘elf-blood’, and I wouldn’t be able to work towards the end of a pregnancy anyway,” Iona replied matter-of-factly.
 
“Is that a yes?” Prince asked her.
 
Iona closed her eyes and did not open them, apparently deciding that if she refused to acknowledge that he was there he’d disappear.
 
“Prince, maybe you should go down to the kitchen and find your dog,” Eleanor hinted.
 
“I’m going, I’m going…” Prince grumbled. “I’ll talk to you later, Lana.”
 
“Iona,” Gilmore said as they began to make their way towards the kitchen again.
 
“Pardon?” Prince asked, puzzled.
 
“Her name was Iona,” Gilmore clarified.
 
Prince still looked confused. “Who?”
 
Gilmore sighed. “Never mind.”
 
Nan was shouting at the terrified elven servants when they arrived. “Get that bloody mutt out of the larder!” she ordered.
 
Prince opened the door to the larder and out crawled a half a dozen giant rats followed closely by Prince’s mabari, Arl.
 
The elven servants immediately started screaming and ran for the other side of the room.
 
“You know, this reminds me of the start of every great adventure tale my father used to tell me,” Gilmore remarked idly. “I guess the heroes of legends had a lot of rat problems. Well, let’s take care of them.”
 
“You can do that,” Prince said haughtily. “As the son of a Teyrn this is beneath me.”
 
“But…” Gilmore started to say before he shook his head. “All right, then.” He and Arl made quick work of the rats.
 
“Now that’s taken care of,” Nan began, irritated, “I’ll only have to worry about convincing my useless help to go anywhere near the rest of the larder for the next month at least!”
 
“Now that that’s settled, I really should get back to my duties,” Gilmore said apologetically. “Goodbye, Prince.”
 
“Whatever,” Prince said apathetically. What was he supposed to be doing again?
 
“Shouldn’t you go find your brother?” Nan hinted.
 
Oh, right. How was it that everybody knew about that again? At this rate it seemed like Fergus could get the idea that their father wanted to see him on his own.
 
Prince would have headed straight for Fergus’ room but he thought that he spotted Iona in the library. Unfortunately, when he went in to talk to her he was ambushed by his old tutor. “Hello, dear boy! I’m trying to teach these imbeciles something about history. They’re a bit…slow.”
 
“I hate history. Why should I care about the Couslands?” one of his would-be pupils demanded.
 
“Because they have the power to decide who lives and who dies and you’re insulting them in front of Prince Cousland himself!” the tutor admonished. “Would you care to help me try to educate these wayward youths?”
 
“I would except that I don’t care,” Prince explained. “I’m just looking for that hot elven girl that came in here earlier. Have you seen her?”
 
“No,” the tutor snapped. “And if you’re not going to help then I’m going to have to remind you that your brother-”
 
“I know, I know,” Prince cut him off wearily. Casting one last wistful look around the library – he could have sworn he’d seen her in here! – he reluctantly went off to go see his brother.
 
Fergus was, indeed, in his room blissfully unaware that half the castle wanted him to go see the Teyrn. He, Oriana, and Oren were having a mushy goodbye.
 
“Come to see me off, little brother?” Fergus asked when he was finally able to tear himself away from his wife long enough to notice Prince’s presence. And, as always, he felt the need to rub in the fact that he was five years older. Not that Prince was upset about this, of course, as if he had been Fergus’ age he would have been expected to seriously consider marriage and until Cailan was nice and dead he couldn’t really do that.
 
“You are all making me sick,” Prince complained.
 
Oriana sent him a disapproving glance but Fergus merely chuckled. “You’ll understand when you have a girl of your own one day.”
 
“I’ve had scores of girls and I still don’t get it,” Prince replied skeptically.
 
Oriana started coughing. “S-scores?”
 
“I mean a real girl, not one of those who-” Fergus cut off suddenly as he realized that his son was still in the room. “Those horrible girls you hang around with.”
 
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that they’re horrible,” Prince said with a smirk. “Although they are pretty naughty…”
 
“My son doesn’t need to hear this,” Oriana quickly interceded.
 
“Uncle, if they’re naughty do they have to go to the Chantry and pray?” Oren asked earnestly.
 
“Well, I don’t know about praying but they sure do say the Maker’s name a lot…” Prince replied slyly. “And don’t call me ‘Uncle’, kid.”
 
“But you’re my uncle,” Oren said reasonably.
 
“I know but that makes me sound old and while I know some girls are into things like that I’d really rather not give out that impression lest your grandmother starts pestering me for grandchildren again,” Prince explained.
 
Oren just blinked at him. “What?”
 
Fortunately, Prince was spared having to further communicate with his slightly stupid nephew by the arrival of his parents.
 
“I hope you weren’t thinking of leaving without saying goodbye,” Bryce said suddenly as he and Eleanor entered the room.
 
“Father, if you were going to come to Fergus then why did you tell me to send him to you?” Prince asked, annoyed. “Do you hate me or something?”
 
“Nothing of the sort,” Bryce replied jovially. “I just wanted both of my children in the same place before Fergus left.”


“And this couldn’t be accomplished by sending a servant to go fetch Fergus to where we were because…?” Prince inquired.
 
Bryce shrugged. “I didn’t feel like it.”
 
“The Maker sustain and preserve us all. Watch over our sons, husbands, and fathers and bring them safely back to us,” Oriana prayed.
 
Prince rolled his eyes. “Really, Oriana, can’t you save that for the prayer meeting Mallol is holding tonight? I hate it when you try to force your made-up religion on me.”
 
“And I hate it when you remind me that you’re a godless heathen,” Oriana returned.
 
“And I hate it when you insist on being Antivan,” Prince added.
 
“I’m always Antivan!” Oriana exclaimed.
 
“So I noticed,” Prince said dryly.
 
“Alright, break it up,” Eleanor cut in. “You two can bicker all you’d like while Fergus and Bryce are off at war and I’m in Denerim.”
 
“You will take care of mother, won’t you, Prince?” Fergus asked affectionately.
 
Prince stared at him. “…You realize that she just said that she’s going to Denerim, right? Meaning that I’d only need to ‘take care of her’ for one night and then she’s leaving?”
 
“Well…will you make sure that nothing unspeakable happens to her before she leaves?” Fergus amended.
 
Prince shrugged. “No promises. I’ve yet to even find Ionia and then I’ll be very busy.”
 
“Now Prince, what have we told you about harassing guests?” Eleanor asked sharply.
 
“Besides, you’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow,” Bryce added. “So I want you to go straight to bed.”
 
Prince’s jaw dropped in horror. “But…It’s, like, four o’clock! And Oren’s not even in bed!”
 
“Now, Prince,” Bryce said firmly.
 
Prince shot a withering glare at them. “Oh, fine. You know what? Send me to bed. See if I care. And see if I save you all when Arl Howe inevitably goes mad tonight and tries to kill you all!”
 
“Are you sure that putting him in charge of the castle is a good idea?” Oriana asked as she watched him leave.
 
Eleanor shrugged. “Most of the personnel will be gone and he’s got to try his hand at ruling at some point. What’s the worst that could happen?”

[Sarah1281]

My seventy-third story was 'The Woes of Ser Cauthrien' where Cauthrien arrives at Howe's estate to find the origin-confused Laiarda Mahariel bickering with Anora on how to rescue someone properly.


Ser Cauthrien, ever-loyal knight in the service of the Teyrn and regent Loghain Mac Tir, hadn’t quite known what to expect when she had been called by Anora’s frantic Orlesian maid (how was Loghain okay with his daughter having an Orlesian maid around anyway?) over to the Howe’s new Denerim estate. She hadn’t quite expected to find the Dalish Grey Warden and Eamon’s candidate for king standing with several others and literally drenched in blood. What exactly had they been doing here? Clearly, quite a few people had died in this estate today and given that Teyrn Howe was nowhere in sight, chances were good that he was one of them.
 
“Warden! In the name of the regent, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Rendon Howe and his men-at-arms,” Cauthrien declared. “Surrender and you may be shown mercy.”
 
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” the Warden claimed.
 
“So you didn’t slaughter your way through the Arl’s estate and then kill Rendon Howe?” Cauthrien asked skeptically.
 
“Well…I did do that,” the Warden admitted. “But I was just claiming my blood rights! That pretender Howe killed my parents, my nephew, my sister-in-law…I asked Loghain to do something about it when we first got to the city but he refused to.”
 
“Is this about you being convinced that you’re a Cousland again?” Cauthrien asked incredulously.
 
“What do you mean by asking if I’m ‘convinced’ that I’m a Cousland?” the Warden asked suspiciously. “I am Laiarda Cousland and neither Howe’s treachery nor my status as a Grey Warden can take that from me!”
 
“You’re not a Cousland,” Cauthrien said flatly. “You can’t be. Teyrn Cousland was a human. His wife, the Teyrna, was also human. If either of them – let alone both – were your parents then you wouldn’t be an elf.”
 
“I’m not an elf,” the Warden – possibly named Laiarda – said, sounding shocked.
 
“Yes, you really-” Cauthrien started to insist.
 
“Pardon me,” Maric’s bastard, Alistair, spoke up. “But I would really recommend not getting into this argument with her. You will never convince her.”
 
“How does she not realize that she’s an elf?” Cauthrien demanded.
 
Alistair shrugged. “I really don’t know. She thinks she’s a lot of people, actually. Just go with it.”
 
“Alistair, stop spouting gibberish,” Laiarda ordered.
 
“Even if you had the right to claim blood rights, you still need to have that approved by a Landsmeet or the ruler of Ferelden,” Cauthrien explained. “You can’t just say ‘Blood rights!’ and murder the Arl of Amaranthine, Arl of Denerim, and Teyrn of Highever in his home.”
 
“I tried getting approval, remember?” Laiarda asked. “Loghain pretended he couldn’t hear me.”
 
“Be that as it may, you broke the law here and, as a Grey Warden, you’re an outlaw anyway,” Cauthrien pointed out. “As such, it is my duty to take you in to Fort Drakon.”
 
Laiarda’s eyes widened. “Fort Drakon? I got locked up in there for illegal sword possession down at the Alienage a few times. They have torture racks there!”
 
Cauthrien thought about pointing out that if this Dalish girl were really a Cousland – which she wasn’t – then her having a sword in an Alienage wouldn’t have been a big deal but decided that it just wasn’t worth it. Laiarda seemed unwilling or unable to stray from her multiple-choice past. “And we don’t use it on everybody the minute they arrive! You would have your items and armor taken from you and await the regent in a cell. No harm would come to you until at least after meeting with Loghain, I promise you that. I’m even willing to let your accomplices go as you and Alistair are the only ones we’re really interested in.”
 
“That does sound like quite an offer,” Laiarda mused. “Except I have some pretty bad memories of Fort Drakon and no desire to return. If we were to, hypothetically of course, reveal that we only broke into the estate because we were told that Queen Anora was here and in need of rescuing and Arl Howe was killed in the process of rescuing her, would it make a difference?”
 
“It might,” Cauthrien said carefully, hoping to avoid a fight. She had far more men then the Warden did and so if it came to a straight-out fight in this room than she should win. The crown had been having budgetary problems, as evidenced by the fact that elves were being sold into slavery, and so her men were only barely being paid enough to follow her here and certainly not enough to chase the Warden down if she left the main room. “But I would need proof to substantiate your claims, Anora would need to be returned to her father, and you would still need to go to Fort Drakon for Loghain to decide your fate. I’m sure he would take extenuating circumstances like that into account, though.”
 
“Well…I suppose that’s better than nothing,” Laiarda said with a shrug. “Hey, Anora’s right there.” She pointed at a guard that was a bit too short.
 
Cauthrien examined the previously overlooked guard closely. “Anora?”
 
“Thank goodness you’ve come, Ser Cauthrien!” Anora cried out. “This brigand just tried to kidnap me!”
 
“The hell? I just rescued you!” Laiarda protested.
 
“You can’t possibly have just rescued me,” Anora sniffed. “Because if you had then you would have known that I would have specifically told you not to reveal my identity.”
 
“No, you really wouldn’t have,” Laiarda argued. “You would have just explained why you were in disguise but not given me any instructions, specific or otherwise.”
 
“I am absolutely certain, Warden, that I would have said ‘If Howe's people find me, I'll be killed. And my people will insist on escorting me back to the palace...where my father may also have me killed’ if I really thought that I was in any need of rescue,” Anora countered. “Which, of course, I didn’t. But if I did then how much more specific would I have needed to be? Should I have added ‘And me dying is something I would really rather avoid?’ That seemed to be implied.”
 
Cauthrien raised an eyebrow at this. Loghain, killing his only daughter? She couldn’t possibly actually believe that. What kind of game was Anora playing at?
 
“It would have been helpful,” Laiarda agreed. “I know you probably didn’t expect Cauthrien to be here but if you really wanted to make sure that I knew not to reveal your identity ever you should have said something like ‘Even if this is the only sensible way of getting any of us, including me, out of here alive, you should still keep your mouth shut and trust that I'll magically go unnoticed, while you'll be kept in the least secure prison in history.’”
 
Cauthrien felt that she had to step in here. “Fort Drakon is not the least secure prison in history!”
 
“Sure it is,” Laiarda replied automatically. “I’ve broken out…” she trailed off. “I mean, I’ve dreamed of breaking out often. I never quite managed it in reality, however.”
 
“Assuming that I was being rescued and really in fear for my life, what good would revealing me possibly do? If my people would take me to my father then you can be certain that my father’s people would as well!” Anora exclaimed.
 
Laiarda shrugged. “I guess I would have figured that I would have had a better chance if you ordered Cauthrien to stand down or at least tried to talk her down and explain all about how I was saving you then if I had to try to fight my way out or hope to not be killed on my way to or at Fort Drakon. And I would have thought that you would have better luck with your father than as one of my expendable companions or if this did come out to be a fight.”
 
“I might be queen but Cauthrien is my father’s right-hand woman! I can’t override his orders,” Anora protested. “And she wouldn’t listen to me above him anyway and would absolutely insist on bringing me to him. And if I were worried that he might have me killed – which I’m definitely not and I don’t know where she got that idea – then I would probably stand a better chance NOT having my identity given away and trying to sneak away.”
 
“If you can’t even talk one fanatical Loghain supporter down then what good are you?” Laiarda asked, disgusted.
 
“I’m not even going to answer that question,” Anora said, rubbing her forehead in exasperation. “Now, Ser Cauthrien, I hope you don’t mind if I take my leave of you all. I fear staying around my would-be kidnapper wouldn’t be good for my mental health for numerous reasons.” With that, she stormed towards the door and left.
 
Cauthrien just shook her head. “Will you go quietly or will it come to a fight?”
 
Laiarda gave a put-upon sigh. “I guess I’ll come. Don’t worry about me, guys, I should be back within two hours.”
 
As Cauthrien gave the signal for Laiarda and Alistair’s arrest, she decided that Loghain was really quite lucky that she was so loyal to him. She really didn’t get paid enough for this either.

[Sarah1281]

My seventy-fourth story was 'Awkward' where Alistair attempts to bond with a Warden romancing Morrigan by gossiping about their companions and for some reason thinks it's a good idea to call her a ****.


Reidin Aeducan was largely indifferent to his fellow Warden. Alistair had initially seemed very competent at Ostagar but once it was over, he had fallen apart. Reidin tried to keep in mind the scope of the massacre that went down there and to make allowances but those allowances didn’t mean he had to particularly like the other man. Reidin had had to work with plenty of people who he honestly wouldn’t have cared if they dropped dead right in front of him but if the way that Alistair and Morrigan wouldn’t stop bickering at each other was any indication, neither of them had had any experience working with those they didn’t like. Alistair in particular kept attempting to make friends with him and was now in the middle of asking him about their companions.
 
“Morrigan. Do you trust her? Think about it... maybe Flemeth sent her with us for some other reason than she said,” Alistair said suspiciously.
 
Reidin valiantly resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “You really don’t like her much, do you?” he asked rhetorically.
 
Alistair clearly didn’t understand what a rhetorical question was or else just really, really wanted to complain about Morrigan as he took that as an indication to elaborate. “Well aside from the fact that she's a complete and utter ****, no...I don't like her at all. Why? Do you?”
 
“Morrigan and I are involved, yes,” Reidin replied, waiting for a half-hearted apology for calling his girlfriend a **** or at the very least a quick subject change. It didn’t come.
 
Alistair actually snorted at that. “Oh, well…you’re funeral.”
 
“Excuse me?” Reidin asked frostily.
 
Alistair looked surprised at the sudden hostility. “What?”
 
“Alistair, why did you start this conversation with me?” Reidin asked pointedly.
 
Alistair shrugged. “I was just trying to get to know you better, I guess. We haven’t really talked much and we’re going to be spending a lot of time together trying to stop the Bight and bring down Teyrn Loghain.”
 
“Right, so your purpose in this was not, in fact, to insult me,” Reidin said slowly, waiting for him to catch on.
 
Alistair, for his part, looked horrified. “Maker, no! I never intended to…how did I insult you?”
 
“You attempted to bond with me by calling my girlfriend a ****,” Reidin reminded him.
 
“I didn’t know you were together,” Alistair tried to defend himself.
 
“And now you do. Try again,” Reidin said flatly.
 
“You asked me about it!” Alistair exclaimed.
 
“Wrong, I asked a rhetorical question. Even if you didn’t recognize it as such, an appropriate and completely non-offensive answer would have been something along the lines of ‘No kidding’ or ‘What makes you think that?’,” Reidin replied sternly.
 
“Well, maybe calling her a **** – even if she totally is one – wasn’t very nice,” Alistair conceded. “But come on! I called her that once and she calls me a fool pretty much every time we ever talk.”
 
“Calling someone a **** is a bit more offensive than calling them a fool,” Reidin countered. “At least it is where I come from. And even if you do feel that she’s a **** then there is still no reason to go telling me, who you now realize is her boyfriend, all about it.”
 
“Would you rather I lied to you?” Alistair demanded.
 
Reidin closed his eyes. “Let us suppose for the sake of argument that I thought that you had the stupidest haircut I’ve ever seen-”
 
“Hey!” Alistair interrupted. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
 
“This isn’t about your hair, Alistair,” Reidin said impatiently. “This is about a hypothetical situation. Would you consider it lying if I didn’t tell you how stupid your hair was? It would be lying if I gushed about how amazing it was but all I would be doing was keeping silent on the matter of your hypothetically-stupid haircut.”
 
“Well, no,” Alistair admitted. “I wouldn’t call that lying.”
 
“I’m not asking you to tell me how wonderful Morrigan is, just don’t tell me that she’s a ****,” Reidin requested.
 
“You never say anything when she calls me a fool,” Alistair pointed out.
 
“Well, you’re usually there to tell her that yourself and I don’t need to get involved with your arguments,” Reidin explained.
 
“ ‘Usually’?” Alistair challenged.
 
“We don’t talk about you very often when you’re not there because, frankly, we have better things to do but when we do then no, I don’t tell her to stop,” Reidin conceded.
 
“Then why are you getting mad at me for calling Morrigan a ****? And would you care if I called her that to her face?” Alistair inquired.
 
“I’m getting upset because ‘****’ is more insulting than ‘fool’, as I’ve already said, and because I like her more than you,” Reidin informed him. “And I still wouldn’t be pleased to hear you call her that if she were here but if she were then she’d be perfectly able to defend herself and probably just laugh at me if I said something to you about it.”
 
Alistair frowned at the mention of someone liking Morrigan more than him. “It just seems like kind of a double standard if you never say anything to her when she starts calling me a fool when I’m not there and yet I’m not allowed to call her anything or else you make a big deal about it.”
 
“You may be right, Alistair, but it doesn’t really matter,” Reidin told him seriously. “This isn’t a trial, no one’s getting punished, this isn’t anything official or me trying to be fair. This is about me feeling that you trying to bond with me by calling my girlfriend a **** is a really bad idea. This is about me asking you not to do so again when Morrigan isn’t here. This is about how you can do whatever you want, of course, but if you really care at all about trying to forge some sort of friendship then I would highly recommend not insulting her to my face.”
 
With that, Reidin walked away and left Alistair to try and make a decision on the matter.

[Sarah1281]

My seventy-fifth story was 'Shouldn't Have Gotten Involved' which is about Elva. For those who don't remember, she's the obnoxious woman in the CE origin who will turn you over to the guard if you don't do it first.


The world was on fire. Elva wished she could say that she was surprised. She knew this would happen. She had known this would happen from the moment those trouble-makers had gone off to storm the Arl’s estate. She had known that the best case scenario would be them never finding a way in or being killed by guards before getting anyway near Vaughan. It wouldn’t do those poor girls any good but it would keep the rest of them safe.
 
She had tried to remind them why they never did anything about the shems taking liberties with them before. She had tried to make them see that for as bad as everything was now, it could always be infinitely worse and a full-on assault on the estate would only make everything worse. Her words seemed to at least touch most of the people but that redheaded Soris and that other one just had to go in and reclaim their brides. Their eyes flashed defiance as they demanded to know whether Elva suggested that they just abandon their brides to be raped and possibly killed. They had shaken their heads in disgust and left when she had replied in the affirmative. They thought she didn’t care. They were wrong.
 
There had been six girls kidnapped. Even if they were broken into so many pieces so as to never recover or outright killed it was still only six girls. The Alienage had nearly fifteen hundred. The missing girls made up less than a half of a percentage of the population. If these reckless fools caused trouble, they wouldn’t be the only ones to suffer from it. At least when Adaia had raised hell she had been careful to make it clear that it was she alone who was responsible and so she died alone. If these children got themselves caught and killed then the entire Alienage would pay. The shems couldn’t afford to let them start to get strange ideas in their heads like they had any power or could do anything about whatever the humans wanted to do to them.
 
The wedding party had soon returned minus only one or two of their members. Most of the women appeared to be fine but that sister of Soris’, Shianni, had clearly already been brutalized. No one else seemed to realize it but Elva had lived long enough, seen more than enough, to recognize the signs. Shianni would be fine, though. She wasn’t the type to break easily but, unfortunately, also the type to cause enough trouble that a shem somewhere would take pleasure in breaking her down and killing her by inches. She just couldn’t keep her head down.
 
The trouble-makers had avoided their punishment at the hands of the guards. One of them had gone off to go join the mythical Grey Wardens – nope, not at all putting on airs – and the other hadn’t even spoken up and admitted what he did. The Maker, like everybody, hated elves, though, and so all the Grey Wardens died at Ostagar and Soris was quickly ostracized. Ostagar had brought other things, of course. There were refugees who had come pouring in with their desperation and the plague. Arl Urien had fallen at Ostagar and Soris had helped kill his heir so who would step up but an Arl from the north? This Arl Howe hadn’t been pleased to hear what had happened to Vaughan and so had decided to remind them all of their place.
 
He had brought the fire. There had been riots after Vaughan’s death and Howe had mercilessly put them down. His men had killed whoever so much as looked at them funny. There didn’t seem to be a reason to slaughter the entire orphanage. The shems had just wanted to prove a point. They could do whatever they wanted to. Soris and his cousin should have just kept their heads down. They had caused all of this and Elva wasn’t alone in thinking that. Life became almost intolerable for young Soris and if he hadn’t brought it all on himself, Elva might have even felt sorry for him.
 
The first thing that Elva could remember her mother ever telling her was that the shems had all the power and that defying them would mean death. Keeping her head down was the only way to stay alive. Her father hadn’t kept his head down and his head had been mounted on a pike outside of the Arl’s estate. Elva never had found out the details of what had happened but the fact that she didn’t know how far one could go before getting that kind of treatment had always driven her to stay on the safer side. The fact that her father died had meant that there was very little money to spare and so Elva really should have been grateful that she got a husband at all but the one she did get…he was so wretched, really. Ugly and fat and lazy and drunk and useless. She might have been better off on her own. At least he knew better than to get involved in what was going on (if he were even sober enough to notice) and so he and the children had stayed alive during the riots and the purge and the blood that was splattered everywhere.
 
Even if bodies were burning in the street, it didn’t matter. The ever-present fire that started mere hours after Howe had arrived in Denerim was lessening lately. It would appear that someone had noticed their plight and decided to make some use of it. Tevinter ‘healers’ had come. Shianni was accusing them of taking the people who went in for quarantine as so few of them ever made it out. Despite the fact that the Tevinters claimed that the quarantined people were still ill and that’s why they hadn’t left, Elva knew better than to trust a shem. Slavery wasn’t legal in Ferelden but it was legal in Tevinter and for all she knew that was what was happening to everyone that disappeared. Or maybe she was just getting old and paranoid. It didn’t matter. She’d be safer out here either way.
 
Elva had been lucky in that her house hadn’t been one of the looted ones during the riots. There had been nothing to take, of course, as her husband was too fat and drunk to work and her money was stretched far too thin as it was. Still, even if she had nothing it was nice to have one of the few houses without broken in doors or windows. She had been coughing for weeks. Her temperature was far too high to be normal and yet she found she couldn’t get warm. There was a basin next to her bed to make sure when she vomited it didn’t go all over the place and sometimes there was blood in it. It was getting so hard to think straight. She knew what this was. She knew what was happening.
 
This was the end. This was her end. It hurt. It didn’t seem fair, really. She had never been one of the troublemakers. She had always kept her head down and had done nothing to deserve this and yet she was dying anyway.
 
It wasn’t fair.

[Sarah1281]

This week's prompt was 'Friendship.'


Zevran eyed the post-coronation celebration speculatively. He doubted that anyone would try anything here but in his experience he found that there was no such thing as too careful and even so much as believing that there could be was enough to get you killed.
 
His eyes eventually fell upon the Hero of Ferelden herself, Sereda Brosca. Sereda hadn’t so much as looked Alistair or Anora’s way since she had received her boon – aid for the dwarven people, surprisingly enough – and he couldn’t say that he was surprised. Her break-up with Alistair was pretty fresh, after all, and so making polite small-talk with her ex-boyfriend or his lucky betrothed would be like rubbing salt into the wound.
 
Sereda had spent quite awhile talking to her sister and the smile on her face then was genuine. The moment she turned away, however, there was a certain hollowness in her eyes that Zevran wasn’t sure anyone else recognized but that he knew quite well. She caught him staring and headed over his way.
 
“I can’t believe it’s over,” she told him, not sounding nearly as happy as one would have expected given that they were no longer in danger of being eaten by darkspawn or executed as traitors to the Crown.
 
“Neither can I but I suppose that it had to end sooner or later, one way or another,” Zevran replied. “Have you given any thought to what you’ll be doing next?”
 
“I’ve been doing nothing but that since the moment I jammed my sword into the Archdemon’s brain and killed it,” Sereda replied, almost bitterly. “Anora and Eamon want me to stay at court. They say I’ll have much influence. I’m a sodding duster, what do I know about using influence? They say I’ll learn but I don’t think I can stand to be around all of this. There’s been talk of making me Arlessa of Amaranthine, you know. I honestly don’t care enough about Ferelden or politics to even try me hand at that. Then, of course, Rica wants me to go back to Orzammar with her. She sees this as a fairy-tale ending. Her son is the only child of the king and now she’s a noble herself. She says we could finally be happy there but there’s just too many memories. Even though I literally decided Orzammar’s fate, they still won’t acknowledge I even existed before I underwent the Joining. Those people are not my people and that place is not my home. I don’t want to go back.”
 
“You keep talking about what other people want you to do,” Zevran observed. “But you’ve yet to mention what you want to do?”
 
Sereda looked thoughtful. “I haven’t, have I? You might be the first person who has ever thought to ask me that. Everyone else has just told me what I ought to do but I’ve been doing what they think I should for as long as I can remember. Keep your head down, join the carta, go with the Grey Warden, save Ferelden…I don’t know what I want to do,” she admitted, sounding almost desperate. “I almost wish that I could disappear.”
 
“I know the feeling,” Zevran admitted. “Both feelings. I’m rather new to this whole freedom thing, too, if you’ll recall.”
 
“Taliesin died over a month ago so I think you’re a bit more experienced with this whole concept of freedom than I am,” Sereda pointed out.
 
“Since my first decision was to continue following you around, I’m not that much more experienced,” Zevran countered. “Well…not about that, at any rate. There are a lot of ways to disappear, you know. You could be assassinated – but I am not about to let that happen – you could be kidnapped, or you could even just decide to take off in the middle of the night without telling anybody and leave them to run around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for you.”
 
“That sounds chaotic,” Sereda remarked. “I like it.”
 
“So is that your plan?” Zevran asked her bluntly. “Are you just going to take off in the middle of the night and not tell anyone where you’re going?”
 
Sereda shrugged. “I don’t know. I might. There’s nothing for me here, or in Amaranthine, and certainly not in Orzammar. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything for me anywhere but Thedas is a big place and I guess I shouldn’t write it all off until I go there personally.”
 
“Oh, how daring,” Zevran teased before his expression turned serious. “Take me with you.”
 
Sereda drew back, surprised. “What?”
 
“Take me with you,” Zevran repeated dutifully.
 
“Zevran…I told you, I’m not going to hold you to any stupid oath you made me. I told you that you were free to go and I meant it,” Sereda said firmly.
 
“That is all very well and good but I meant it when I told you that I intended to stick around,” Zevran replied seriously.
 
“But what about the Crows?” Sereda reminded him.
 
“I think the Crows will have a much harder time tracking me down if I’m sneaking around Thedas than if I were to openly stay in any one place,” Zevran told her. “And staying with you is really far safer than wandering about on my own. The Crows are scared of you, remember?”
 
Sereda was clearly fighting a grin at that. “I don’t want you to feel that you’re obligated to take care of me just because I don’t know what I’m doing or because I saved you.”
 
“It’s not an obligation, believe me,” Zevran assured her. “I told you that if I were with you then I would willingly storm the gates of the Dark City itself and I meant it. I still do.”
 
Sereda snorted. “I think we can be friends without you having to go quite that far.”
 
“Maybe, but if there’s one thing that you’ve taught me it’s that friendship can mean whatever it is that we want it to mean. I’ve always wanted to travel. I want to travel with you. That’s my definition of friendship,” Zevran declared.
 
Sereda stood silent for a moment before nodding slowly. “Alright then. I may end up regretting this but…you can come with me.”
 
“Oh, excellent,” Zevran said gleefully. “Laughing at all those panicky Fereldens will be far more fun together than alone, after all.”

[Sarah1281]

My seventy-sixth story was 'I Have A What?' where Alistair learns all about his supposed elf fetish.


“Alistair, we need to talk,” Anastasia Cousland said hesitantly, biting her lip.
 
Alistair’s heart plummeted. He may not be the most experienced man around when it came to women but even he knew that those words were an almost universally bad sign. As Alistair had recently realized that he had, in fact, fallen in love with the woman before him and even more recently become engaged to her, this was pretty much his worst case scenario. “Talk?” he asked, trying desperately to keep his voice level.
 
Anastasia seemed strangely reluctant to go on which Alistair could just manage to hope meant that her heart wasn’t set on this and he might be able to change her mind. “Yes, talk.”
 
The pair of them stood in awkward silence. Alistair really didn’t want to have this conversation but he couldn’t just leave either and so the minutes dragged on until he felt that it was getting a little ridiculous. “About?” he finally prompted.
 
Anastasia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “About your elf fetish,” she blurted out.
 
Alistair practically fell over. That was not what he had been expecting to hear. “My what?”
 
Anastasia opened her eyes and stared unflinchingly at him. “Your elf fetish.”
 
“But…I don’t even have an elf fetish!” he insisted.
 
“That’s not what I heard,” Anastasia retorted, crossing her arms.
 
“From who?” Alistair asked, genuinely puzzled.
 
Anastasia waved her hand vaguely. “Oh, you know, everyone. People have heard that we’re engaged to be married, you see, and so they’ve told me all about the Theirin Elf Fetish. In fact, I’ve had seventeen different people warn me that you’re likely to cheat on me with one the minute my back is turned just today. I was initially just going to ignore what people have been saying but at this point it’s getting ridiculous so I thought I’d better bring it up.”
 
Alistair blinked, feeling the uncomfortable but all-too-familiar sensation that everyone else knew more about his paternal line than he did. “Theirin Elf Fetish?”
 
“Oh yes,” Anastasia replied with a nod. “Apparently your father had been seeing this Orlesian elf during the rebellion – she mysteriously vanished so who knows what happened there – and then they claim he was involved with this other Orlesian Grey Warden elf who eventually went off to Weisshaupt. Also, most of Cailan’s mistresses were elven. That’s two elf fetishes for two Theirin males.”
 
“Two people who happen to have had sex with a few – or a lot in Cailan’s case – does not mean that my family suddenly has a hereditary thing for elves!” Alistair cried out.
 
“Are you sure?” Anastasia asked him. “I mean, these are two of your closest relatives, after all. It would be really weird if it were just a coincidence.”
 
“It would be even weirder if all of these random people who are apparently warning you about my secret elf fetish that is apparently so clandestine that even I don’t know about it knew more about my, um, sexual preferences than I do,” Alistair retorted.
 
“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have an elf fetish?” Anastasia asked, surprised.
 
“Not that I’m aware of,” Alistair told her. “And before you say anything else, let me remind you that I have seen very many elves during our time together. And even if I did, it would hardly matter because having an attraction to something doesn’t mean that I would have to automatically do it. Um, I mean, act on my attraction.”
 
Anastasia giggled. “I think you got it right that first time.”
 
Alistair blushed and cleared his throat. “Yes, well…As I was saying, I spent all of my teenage years in the Chantry living with the knowledge that I was going to be required to undertake a vow of chastity.”
 
“And actually intending to keep it,” Anastasia added.
 
Alistair nodded. “I really felt that went without saying. Why you seem to feel that that’s unusual is beyond me.”
 
“I talk to Wynne about different things than you do,” was all Anastasia had to say about the matter.
 
“If I could control myself then, I can control myself now. Even if I wake up one day and decide that nothing in this world would make me happier – in bed – than to go after an elven woman, I wouldn’t do that,” Alistair told her solemnly. “And do you know why?”
 
“Because you don’t want to feed into the rumors that you have an elf fetish?” Anastasia guessed.
 
Alistair laughed lightly. “No. It’s because I love you and you’re not an elf. And then there’s also the fact that I wouldn’t want to accidentally father another bastard child and I know that the children of an elf and a human never have easy lives. But mostly the former, really, as precaution could be taken and I’m not likely to have another child at all.”
 
Anastasia smiled. “That’s so sweet.”
 
“So does that mean you believe me?” Alistair asked hopefully.
 
“Oh, about the not cheating on me, definitely,” Anastasia said playfully. “But about the elf fetish…who knows? If you’re not planning on cheating at all and don’t ask me to don some pointy ears then I’ll never know one way or another. Plus, can all these people really be wrong?”
 
Alistair just looked at her. “You do realize that ‘all these people’ regularly go around claiming that you killed Howe by holding him down and cutting him into tiny pieces, that Anora couldn’t conceive because she was a commoner, that you and Anora used to have…relations, that Leliana and I were lovers, that Isolde kept killing everyone Teagan tried to marry, that Ser Cauthrien was pregnant with Loghain’s child when he died and we kept her locked up until the child was born before stealing the child and making her a Grey Warden, that-”
 
“Okay, okay, I get it!” Anastasia exclaimed, cutting him off. “So they’re not always right about everything. But what are we going to do about the rumors?”
 
Alistair shrugged. “What can we do? People will always choose to believe what they want to believe. I say we just ignore it, relish in our less gullible ways, and make sure you never run around with elf ears – and for more reasons than one.”
 
Anastasia tilted her head in mock-consideration before leaning in to kiss him. “I think I can live with that.”